


Grey

by Starkerhowlter (Sinninghowlter)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Free Verse, Little comfort, M/M, Tony Stark tries to help, blink and you miss it - Freeform, heavy mentions of depression, mentions of eating troubles, non-detailed mentions of self-harm, non-detailed mentions of suicidal thoughts/ideation, peter parker is depressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:22:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29950626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinninghowlter/pseuds/Starkerhowlter
Summary: Peter's Grey. He feels nothing. Maybe if he lays here long enough, it'll go away.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Kudos: 16





	Grey

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Alright, I want to give you a bit of a mini-story behind this fic. This fic was written July 23, 2019 at 1:31 am. I was alone. around this time, I had just joined the starker fandom. I didn’t know anyone yet, and I had no clue what to do. I had just graduated high school and was heading to university in less than three weeks. The world had come down on me. My entire family was asleep, and there I sat in the dark, muffling tears, and writing this. Grey was one of the very first fanfictions I ever wrote for this fandom. It’s sort of important to me. If the characters seem off, it’s because they were based on me. I wrote how I was feeling onto Peter and used him to make sense of my own mind. I distinctly remember letting my censors down and letting the words flow. It sort of turned into a bit of a free verse poem, but I still resonate with every single word just like I did when I wrote it the first time. This fic is unbeta’d and I tried not to edit or change anything except for typos and grammatical errors. I hope it’s something that can provide comfort to those in need, and please remember, you are never ever ever alone. <3
> 
> If you need to talk to someone, [ Here is a masterlist of hotlines you can call or text](https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines). Stay safe. You are loved. I promise you will get through this. ❤❤❤
> 
> \--- This is the actual note I left for myself on the original document---  
> "I pinned my feelings on peter. I wrote this depressed. Peter's feelings were my feelings. Are my feelings. Peter is me. I wrote it this way so that I could get them out without my inhibitions stopping me. Tony doesn't exist for me. I don't have any of the other characters. They happened because of Peter. If I can't have them, Peter can. I want to give him better than what I have."  
> \---

Peter lays in bed and sighs, "This is what grey feels like." Tears form in his eyes pointlessly, trying to fall, but they just can't. His throat feels of barbed wire, and his head's filled with the thickest fog in existence. 

He is honestly, well, and truly alone. 

Tony came in earlier, kissed his forehead and sat some cocoa on the side table, but Peter hasn't touched it. He can't bring himself to move. Everything hurts. 

Grey is what the sky feels just before a rainstorm. Grey is the dust that lays thick over any rational thought in his head. Grey is how his tears would look if they would just fall. 

The world feels blah.

Peter looks at his laptop, his favourite movie on the screen. The colours of the characters on screen seem almost offensive. How dare they be that vibrant when Peter can't even feel the tips of his toes without sadness muddying the nerve endings. Can toes be sad? They apparently can, because Peter's are. Toes, ankles, fingers, mouths, arms, shoulders, necks.... everything can be sad. His whole body is sad. He drops his head back down on the plush pillows, wishing they'd swallow him up and make it go away. He wishes Tony could create some form of armour that could make the pain stop. 

Nothing to end it, but just numb it. 

Peter sighs, his muscles feeling nonexistent. His ankles are sore. His eyes are wide, and he wishes they were filled with wonder, not the fact that everything is bleak. He lets out a deep sigh, instead of inhaling happy, he inhales grey. He wonders how the world can be happy when his world is so colourless. 

Tony comes in to check on him. 

Peter pokes the arc reactor in his chest, it's too bright. The blue should be grey. His screen should be grey. Tony's bright brown eyes should be drab. It's all too bright. He's offended that it's all so happy. Tony tries to smile at him and gets a forced half-smile in return. 

It hurts Peter's face and makes his eyes water more. 

They begin to sting and mist. He wishes he could just yell stop and make it all quit hurting. For no reason. His heart burns. His stomach is sick. Everything aches from his eyes to his feet. He wishes seeing his lover could make his heart stop hurting, but it only dulls it slightly. Tony's arms around his waist only stop the pain for a moment, wrapping him in sadness and comfort. 

The grey is comforting. 

It calls to Peter, asking him to near it and indulge it in attention. Attention Peter has no intention of giving. He tries having JARVIS turn on a different movie, texting Bucky and Ned, cuddling with Tony. It makes it hurt less, but the grey isn't satisfied. Nothing works today. Everything is too weak to stop the grey. 

The grey becomes inviting.

Peter feels tempted to cover his thighs in Sharpie flowers. He feels the want to cover his legs in art. Maybe if he covers enough skin the grey will be satisfied and leave. He doesn't. yet. he fights the urge to break his streak of almost four months. 

He doesn't want to satisfy the grey.

He feels selfish for it. For messaging his friends, for talking about it. He wants to revel in the grey for a moment. He finds safety in the grey and the darkness of his room. He knows people out there won't believe that he's sad. He hides it so well. Only Tony knows about it. Tony, and a few select friends. Aunt May doesn't believe him. She thinks it's just a phase. It'll pass and cure itself. 

Tony doesn't. He's seen the grey. 

The grey takes Peter and makes him sleep for 14 hours. The grey makes Peter skip meals and lose 5 pounds before gaining it all back and then some, just to lose it again. The grey makes flowers bloom on his thighs and legs. The grey makes peter write for long periods and then hide the writing. The grey hurts Peter and in turn, hurts him. He wishes he could take the grey away and make it leave. Have JARVIS ban it from the house somehow. 

It always appears without notice. 

One day, Peter will be smiling, singing under his breath in the store, smile sparkling. Quoting funny videos with his friends and laughing at memes. The same day, he will curl up in bed at 2 am and cry. He will hide from everyone in oversized clothing because he sees himself as a box. The grey hazes his head in ways that no one would notice, not even Peter. 

Peter only notices when the grey is there. 

He only sees the signs when it's too late. when the grey has already rolled out its sleeping bag on the floor and declared it's going to stay awhile. Tony wishes he could pick up its sleeping back and toss it out the front door. Saying "forget that" the whole way there.

Peter will feel better tomorrow. 

He will hide his upset behind a smile and some happy music and be fine. He knows that it'll pass and he'll be back to being Tony's boyfriend in a few hours. 

For now, though, he's grey. And he's going to stay that way.

For now, his world is going to stay at 50% opacity and 50% saturation.

For now, he's going to hide from everything and hide with his love. 

Even though the grey threatens to take his love, his life, his world. He knows it can't, but it threatens to take MJ, Ned, and Bucky away. It threatens that they'll disappear, that May will fall away. The grey says they will all stop caring. That they have stopped. The grey says they know Peter's sick. "They're plotting their escape".

He doesn't care.

Peter doesn't care that he hurts. He's become rigid to the sensation of sore muscles, sad eyes, and tight throats. He's become immune to the guilt of lying and saying "I'm fine" when in reality he'd rather die. He's lost the element of surprise when he looks at himself in a public bathroom mirror and finds the gap between the sink and the bin strangely compelling. He's accepted the constant sensation to want to curl up, no matter how gross the floor is, and cry. To curl up and cry, or bleed, or break, or do something to let the world know he's hurt. 

He's kicked. 

He's down and needs help. 

But when he's down, he wants to push the help away. The grey keeps kicking. That's what's gotten him so used to it. He's used to the fact that despite being curled up inside on his bathroom floor, the grey keeps sinking it's heeled foot into Peter's gut and making it hurt more. 

The grey has stabbed him. 

It loves to sink knives into Peter's broken body. It loves to sink knives into Peter's healed body. It loves to poke the scars and stitches with the point of a sharp sword and pull them out bit by bit. Getting under his skin and making it burn. The grey enjoys making Peter suffer however it can.

The grey loves to play with it's best friends, black, red, and white. 

Its friends come in the forms of self-destruction, anger, and fear. 

Its friend black comes in the form of Peter's thoughts where the pills in the cabinet, laying his head under your bath water, the scissors in the lab, and the wires downstairs all become attractive. 

Its friend red comes in the form of anger. Anger at the world around him for making him feel this way. Peter becomes livid at innocent people because they can't help. Tony's seen this. Peter shouting at him over something simple like the air conditioning being too loud. 

Tony knows it's not him. 

He knows Peter isn't truthfully mad at him. He knows that Peter has some unwelcome guests right now with no intention of leaving. 

The grey's other friend: white, comes in the form of fear. White hot and powerful. Peter fears the red and the grey and the black all at once and hides in a corner until it passes. He shakes and whimpers and cries because he's defenceless to their forces. Peter wishes he wasn't scared of everyone. He wishes he could watch people laugh and know they aren't laughing at him. He wishes he could go out in public and not worry about what people think of him. He wishes he could convince the white that no one can see it or its friends. No one can see the grey, the black, the white, or the red, or know when they're here. He wishes he could convince it that he's the only one who knows. 

The white, despite knowing no one can see it, wouldn't make it leave. 

Peter knows that if he were to show the grey and its friends, he'd be locked away. He knows Tony would leave him. MJ, Ned, May, and Bucky following closely behind. 

Then he'd be well and truly alone. 

Once he's alone, the grey can allow its friends full reign. Peter would be colourless, and his world would be too. 

The thought is almost too perfect to be real. 

Eventually, Peter will be okay. He just needs to hide for right now. 

If he can hide for long enough, the grey will get bored and leave.  
Right?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so so much for reading. I would love to know what you thought! ❤
> 
> If you need to talk to someone, [ Here is a masterlist of hotlines you can call or text](https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines). Stay safe. You are loved. I promise you will get through this. ❤❤❤


End file.
